


Home Is Nowhere and Everywhere 1

by NephthysRaven (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Death, Dark Imagery, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:36:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1115006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/NephthysRaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slice of Life. John comes home from a hunt and tells Dean to return the pom-poms and the doll.</p><p>This is my reaction to the flashback from the episode, A Very Supernatural Christmas.  In my mind Sam chooses his father figure and gifts the amulet to him. It wasn't John Winchester.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Is Nowhere and Everywhere 1

**Author's Note:**

> Kripke and the CW own Supernatural. This is just for fun.

 

 

Daylight chases him down the road until he’s turning the corner, and cruising onto the last block to the motel. John runs his thick fingers through his hair. His hands are callused, and dirty, but he’s happy to be home for Christmas. Home, the word in his head triggers the memory of what Home is. John is standing with his wife, holding his blond four year old, Dean. Dean has his tiny hands wrapped around his father’s shoulders. He’s saying something about John being Superman, because Superman is really tall and has big shoulders. His wife holds their newborn son. She’s humming something or maybe nothing. It doesn’t sound familiar to John. Mary’s hair cascades down her soft face, tickling baby Sam. The baby swats at the wisps of hair annoying his forehead. John, Mary, and Dean all laugh. The image fades quickly because it’s not real anymore. It’s the vision he thinks about when the memory of fire, blood, and the sight of flesh burning, enters his mind. John wanted to hold her one last time, despite the heat and the scorching pain. He wanted to smoothen the look on her face, the horror cemented onto her gentle features, as the flames danced around her. The scent of her has never left him either. It follows him, the scent of flesh burning, giving in to heat and death. It has never left Dean. He knows he’s imagining this, maybe not, but Dean’s hair smells of that fire. Sometimes.

 

Home is anywhere he manages to drive to with his kids in tow. It's where the hunt is. Home is where Dean is cleaning his sawed off shotgun and Sam is watching TV. It’s where he has to snatch black coffee out of Dean’s pleading hands and watches, as Sam spies upon a squirrel running up a tree, just outside the motel room. Home is nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

 

Time doesn’t come fast enough to heal the pain. Two hours later he still can’t stand straight. He licks his lips, presses them together and opens the car door. The creak of the door makes the hair on the back of his neck stand, there's no backing out, not now. So he continues on. He huddles into his jacket one last time. He pulls out one leg out of the car, then the other. The injuries throb. Then the pain sets in, riding up his lower back. He leaves the bag of artillery behind. Later. He slams the door shut, shutting out the hunt.

 

He walks up to the motel door, chest up, head held high. John isn’t the most dignified person in the world, but he pretends to be, just in case his oldest son is peaking from behind the curtains. Unlocking the door, he checks the salt line, intact. Both boys are asleep. Gift-wrapping litters the carpet as well as candy bar wrappers and potato chip bags. The distinct smell of chocolate and peanut butter is in the air. John takes note of the scene and shakes his head.

 

The boys are asleep together. The innocents of sleep, John thought. How did something as innocent as sleeping seem like a luxury?

 

John hovers upon Sam first; brushing away the hair on is forehead. This one reminds him of his wife, high strung, curious, and demanding. He was going to be a handful with a mouth full of answers.

 

His eyes sweep upon his oldest, whose arm rests over Sam's waist. Before hell reigned above them, he would have thought this peculiar. Before death drove away the charade of life, death, heaven and hell, John would have pulled the boys apart. He would have demanded that Dean be a grown boy and sleep in his own bed. John’s neck twists to scrutinize his oldest, an adult in a small body.

 

When Dean was four John thought he could see it. It was going to be baseball. Dean was long and lean. Dean had excellent coordination and attention, even at four. John didn’t realize then, that Dean’s kinesthetic skills would be used for hunting instead.

 

Sam on the other hand was in need of work. His mind was always somewhere else, the book he was last reading, or the story he was writing, on and on. John was glad he had Dean to watch over his youngest.

 

"We should take a look at your injuries," Dean says with his eyes closed. John backs off, exhaling slowly, crossing his arms in front of him.

 

"You let me get too close. What if I had been a burglar?"

 

Dean's hand, the one that didn't shield Sam, was ready with his gun. "Then you'd need a doctor just about now," Dean says. The dead pan was perfect. The snark was the Mary in him.

 

"That's your left hand."

 

Dean smirks, "I can shoot with my left hand." He shoves the gun back under his pillow.

 

"I know you can.” John concedes with a smile.

 

Dean gets up being careful not to wake Sam. He yawns, cracking his knuckles and stretching.

 

John can hear Sam breathing. Just like that. I want him to stay the way he is, bright, young, and innocent.

 

"Me too," Dean says.

 

John clears his throat. Dean is so adult John never knows exactly what to say.

 

"Dean, what did I tell you about stealing?"

 

"Never get caught," Dean says sheepishly. His shoulders are raised, his voice pitches higher than normal. He’s like a kid who’s caught playing with matches, although John knows Dean would never play with fire. Dean respects fire.

 

***

 

“I heard it Daddy.”

 

“What did you hear, Dean?”

 

“The fire, it said something.”

 

“Fire can’t speak, son.”

 

“Yes, it can.”

 

***

 

John snaps back into the present because Dean’s smiling like he’s going to burst out laughing. It’s not that John has forgotten, but Dean doesn’t show his dimples often.

 

"I want you to return the doll and the pom-poms."

 

Dean scratches his head. "O.K. Then we'll take a look at your wounds."

 

"I'm not injured, son."

 

"And, I'm not Sam.”

 

Dean pulls on his jacket to leave, when John notices the leather cord around Dean's neck. Dean flicks something out from under his shirt. It reflects enough light to catch John’s eye. John stops breathing for a few seconds. It was Bobby's work, no doubt about it. He’s jealous, because he understands. He’s angry because it was suppose to be for him. John was the foundation of this family. Burdens were for him. Then it was gone. The pangs of jealousy and anger wash over him. John can’t be anything but proud. John can see it now, the ferocity in his oldest son, the hunter, and warrior. He would have chosen Dean too. He watches Dean leave with the Barbie doll and pom-poms tucked under his arm. John peers out the window and wonders if his son will be afraid to survive it all, because Dean isn’t afraid to die. Dean is afraid to survive.

 

 

~NR


End file.
